ACROSS THE OCEAN

Across The Ocean was inspired by Hoàng‘s late aunt, who was a contract worker in the former GDR in 1986. In 2014, during a visit to her home and through subsequent research into family archives, Hoàng was able to uncover the contrast between the hopeful image her aunt projected to her family back home and the reality she endured. This personal discovery led the artist to use food and its symbolic power to investigate immigrant identity and the layers of meaning hidden beneath polished narratives.

When tracing back her family tree, Hoàng was struck by the story of her aunt’s migration from Vietnam to Germany in the 1980s. Her celebratory words, captured on the back of postcards, stand in harsh contrast to the isolation and alienation her aunt suffered while trying to integrate as a contract worker. In Across The Ocean Hoàng uses food as a lens to examine identity, memory, and cultural stereotypes.

By incorporating ingredients like rice and soy sauce, she comments on the way Western cultures perpetuate stereotypical notions of ‘Asianness’ and reduce complex identities to cultural clichés. Food, which is deeply tied to both heritage and everyday life, becomes the medium through which the artist questions how cultural perceptions are formed, sustained, and distorted – when in fact it is the one thing that connects us all.

Text by Katy Hundertmark, Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, 2025